Migration management center in Mali

Just over two years ago the Spanish government desperate to stop migrant workers from crossing into Spain from the Sahara, came to an agreement with the Senegalese government to deploy their coast guard off the coast. They also agreed to set up a school for youths in the hope that would stop them from selling DVDs and umbrellas in Granada and Barcelona. It didn’t, thousands more came and are still coming. They put up electric fences in Morocco and arranged with the Moroccan police to deport migrants from Morocco – many were dumped in the desert by the Moroccan authorities. With Morocco closed, Mauritania became the new departure point for crossing into Spain. The Atlantic waters far more treacherous than the Mediterranean has meant thousands drowning in the small wooden boats during the crossings. In one of the most horrendous crossing, 47Senegalese were left adrift to die in the Atlantic The boat with the bodies was eventually found in Barbados. Again in 2006

As well as seeking to stem illegal migration to the EU, the new Bamako centre is also to act as a reception point for illegal immigrants who have returned or been deported to Africa, as well as acting as a clearing house for legal migrants.

The aim is that individual EU countries, for example France and Spain, will use the centre to offer seasonal work for temporary legal migrants. The commission hopes the Mali project will be the first of a network of European migration centres across West Africa. But aid workers and NGOs are sceptical that African expectations of job offers and recruitment centres will be met.

“The Migration Management Center” will manage migration – a sort of labour camp where the unwanted are separated from the temporary wanted who when their labour is no longer needed or they are too weak to work they will be sent back to the migration center for re-processing. Will these temporary workers be given health insurance, life insurance, accident insurance? What sort of wages will they be offered? What sort of housing? The economies of Europe are in meltdown from years of greed and exploitation of others paying undocumented labour a pittance for the hardest dirtiest unsocial labour so the visible can engage in a gluttony of consumption. And lets not forget the indigenous under employed underclass who exist in the bowels of Europe, in estates outside the major cities such as Paris and London. White and black where generations of families have never worked and probably never will. We are expected to bank roll the bankers with their £300 million bonuses and multiple million $&£ homes but very quickly people are fed the lie that it’s the Malian tomato picker and single mother on a wasteland estate who are the cause of the economy collapsing. 6 months down the line – unless capitalism finally implodes and all that was never really solid melts into air – these two groups will be set upon each other. Immigration becomes the easy excuse for economic crisis. Already between the lines of rescuing banks there is talk of limiting immigration and increasing deportations. It is obscene to see directors and senior bankers walking away with half a billion – because it is their money which ultimately is being protected at the expense of labour.

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Why are our people fleeing? A lot of people inform us that corruption is on the wane and Africa is open for business. But record numbers are fleeing and the numbers of the dead-in-that process is unaccounted for. At least the EU is doing, well, something. What is the AU doing? When will African leaders stop ruining Africa? When SA turns into Zimbabwe on the account of the Zuma issue, we will see more of this migration nightmare. His is a story about why The Migration Management Center should be applauded.

“I arrived to Agadez [Niger] with a dozen friends. I want to go to Algeria, and why not continue to Germany? When I arrived to Agadez, police officers took all my money without giving me a receipt. Without money, I was left behind to somehow earn US$150 [amount needed for passage to Tamanrasset, Algeria]. I am an educated girl, a good Christian if you will, but here I have to sell my body in order to survive. It is hard for me to hold back the tears at times. Clients are never lacking here. A good number of them do not pay because they are officials. To whom would I complain?”